Orbital Comics presents a solo exhibition of new works by Carl Stimpson. The show runs until Wednesday 12th June so please come and have a look. All are welcome to come along to the private view which is on Saturday 1st June at 7 pm.
The wand and lasso are no longer the reserve of magicians and
cowboys. In this age of digital tools it has never been easier to splice
and merge, in order to create montage and composite images. These tools
(and a box of others) make it easy to achieve seamless results, but the ability
to create interesting melded and mashed imagery remains a true challenge.
Carl Stimpson’s analog painting practice has, over the last six
years, focused on producing strange new narratives from a host of cut and
pasted comic book images.
Femme fatales, explosions, comical characters and Japanese
heroines from Belgian comics, to name but a few, are sourced and blended in his
work. Source materials, including the works of cartoonist Dan De Carlo
and Edgar P. Jacobs amongst others, provide visual information that is
appropriated by Stimpson to create his own compositions. The viewer’s
attention switches between boyish interests of fast cars and fighter planes and
the more adult and alluring depiction of voluptuous women. Stimpson
deftly composes these paintings, turning complicated mixtures into final works
that feel as though they have always existed. The leftfield text included
in his paintings serves to disconcert and intrigue the viewer.
The pulp aesthetic of comic book art demands, in the first
instance, only a superficial analysis from the viewer. In recent works
Stimpson has looked beyond the graphic quality of his source material in order
to explore the print processes used to create it. New paintings
incorporate a subtle layering of primary colour washes; this involved
technique serves as a simulation of the means by which the original images were
produced.
The digital paintbrush is considered to be a relatively crude
tool, yet in the hands of this painter its analog equivalent is used
sensitively and deftly. Stimpson’s work reflects a painterly aptitude, a
long-standing love of the comic book medium and a broad, deepening knowledge of
its history. His paintings are peculiar, beguiling and entertaining.
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